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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Tales of Stitchery

I have found when telling tales it is best to begin at the beginning...and so, let me begin.

It was a dark and stormy afternoon, the dwellers of the little green cottage were busying themselves with chores and other activities of industry whilst draped in sweaters of questionable repair. Amidst the cacophony of wind and rain hurling against the windows, the lady of the house discovered herself ticking off the last item on her to-do list. "Well now..." she sighed and spied with her little eye a small hat box on the mantel. Inside the box was a rainbow of floss and a half finished piece of embroidery that whispered sweet enticements.

Seeing as the wee lass that lived in the cottage was occupied with a rainy day movie and a plate of toast and jam, the lady thought it would be the perfect moment to take up thread and needle. She soon found herself in quiet reverie, stitching onto crisp vintage linen. After a while the lady left her cozy spot on the sofa to attend to a domestic matter in another room.

Suddenly she noticed an eerie silence come over the cottage and felt her blood run cold. Someone or Something was in the house! The lady ran down the hall, heart pounding breath shallow turning the corner to see the empty chair of the wee lass. The child was nowhere in sight, what she did see stopped her heart in terror. Over at the sofa, grabbing hold of the nearly finished stitching was the awful, dangerous, devastating and quite messy, Jam Monster!

"Noooo!!" the lady cried and ran to defend her hearth and home from the terrible beast. The lady demanded of the monster, "What have you done, where is my daughter?" To which the monster roared, "I just wanted to sew something." Fortunately, the lady was quite good at thinking on her feet and banished the Jam Monster with a good dose of soap and water. The lost daughter emerged with a rather exaggerated lower lip pout and a dramatic apology for inviting the jammy handed monster in for tea. "It's alright," said the lady, "would you like to sew something too?"

The wind died down, the rain let up and a very pleasant hour was spent... two heads bent together over stitches. The lady teaching the wee lass how to hold hoop and needle, how to keep stitches going in the desired direction. When the lady asked the child, "Who is that you've stitched there?" The child looked up with pride and joy and said, "That's you Mama!"

After admiring her work, my daughter said to me, "I'm going to put it in your shop for someone to buy, it will cost 2 dollars."Thinking that was quite a bargain and really not being able to imagine parting with such a masterpiece, I handed her 2 dollars and bought it as a present for myself. I am one happy customer!

I'm off now to keep a date with The Fraulein to stitch up some pretties for my own shop update this coming Friday. More details about that in my next post.

16 comments:

That's so sweet! My daughter likes to "sew," too, which usually consists of helping me pull the needle out of the fabric. I'm thinking she might be almost ready to try a few stitches of her own. But beware that Jam Monster!

2 dollars well spent! It's a lovely piece, but I was really enjoying your own embroidery too, and the tale itself.

We have mud and cut-grass monsters regularly entering our house at the moment, sadly. I find that a mop is quite a useful defense, but probably not as all-effective as your soap and water banishment, especially as my monsters have varying numbers of legs...

I love the story and most especially I adore the Pony Girl's embroidery - what a treasure for you!Thank you for your comment over at mine - the whole issue of creativity is such a big thing for me, as it is for many of us. I think I may have to write a lot more on that topic! Looking forward to seeing more of your 'laundry' embroidery too...Happy days,Denise x

So gorgeous! I love the picture in my head of the two of you sitting there stitching away together. You feeling less and less cross and her feeling less and less guilty. Nothing like a jammy stroy with a happy ending. x